Seize the Effing Day

Tag Archives: i suck at planning

I’m learning from my mistakes, and realizing that my original idea to write in the evenings just isn’t going to happen. In the past I lived on my own and could write whenever, but since just over a year back I live with my partner, and have discovered that I can’t write with him around. We share a desk, so he’s right next to me – which is nothing short of distracting. Especially when he’s yelling at random strangers in a computer game.

The new plan is to write in the afternoon when I get home from work. I usually have a couple of hours before he arrives, so that will be my writing time. As long as I can stay awake, that is. Definitely my biggest issue at the moment.

Once my new job starts, I’ll have even more time every day before the partner comes home, since I’ll either have a day off – or I’ll be coming off the night shift and will have from whenever I wake up to when he comes home.

I definitely need to schedule my time though, because if I think “oh, I can write whenever” – it doesn’t happen. There are too many other things that I’m doing. (Most of all sleeping, or working. My life is filled with excitement, as you can see.)

My goal from now on will be to revise at least one chapter per day. I’d like to schedule some writing in there too, but I haven’t quite decided what I’ll work on first. To ease myself back into writing I might just finish off a couple of short stories (not for publication) that I have lying around. Get my fingers (and brain!) warmed up again with something that’s not as important as something I plan to publish.

Like this:

I can’t believe that it’s 2017 already. Where did the time go? This means that I am out of excuses, since I’ve been saying that this year is when I will get back to writing and get my stuff into gear.

So, I need to make a plan. A writing/editing plan. Keeping in mind of course the available time I have, and my limitations in regards to my chronic pain and fatigue. I don’t want to have another burn out, but I also don’t want another year of doing virtually no writing. This is it. I’m going to publish at least one of my books this year. It “only” needs some editing. (I say “only”, because it needs a lot of editing and editing is hard work.)

I don’t really want to do New Year’s Resolutions, as I don’t necessarily believe in the whole “new year, new me”-thing. But I would like to put some goals up for the year.

Create a writing/editing schedule and stick to it.

New blog theme, including a new header. I find it difficult to choose something I like. It needs to be easy to read while also easy on the eyes, and not too boring.

Get better at commenting on other blogs.

Read more books (maybe review them?).

Finish up my short stories.

Publish first book (self-publish as e-book) before the end of the year.

Non writing/blog related ones are:

Start getting rid of and sorting through all the boxes of stuff just “hanging around”.

Finally sort out the closet in the hallway. It’s a mess!

Figure out a better way to store things in the kitchen. It’s small and I desperately need to figure out better solutions to fit things!

Home improvements (lots of rooms need painting etc. and we’ve been here a year now, no more excuses!).

Like this:

Since I’ve decided that 2017 is the year that I’m going for it in regards to getting a novel published (most likely self-published as an e-book, but I will write more about that another day), I need to start making a plan on how to go about it.

In fact, I really need two plans. The first one being how to get my manuscript edited and ready for publication, the second one being a general writing plan. A schedule, basically. I need to figure out how to fit writing into my life again.

I started this blog a little bit before 2017 as a means to get me back into the writing habit, even if only to blog for now, and to start said planning.

My first step will have to be to find a dedicated time for writing. This is most likely the most difficult part, and I admire writers who seem to be able to sit down and just get it done. I need to work on becoming one of them!

My weekends and evenings are generally free, minus two nights a week. The biggest issue for me is probably energy, rather than time. When I get back from work I’m usually knackered, and I often end up falling asleep. I suspect this is because of my chronic fatigue, in that I have a limited amount of energy and work tends to drain all of it. Still, if I can somehow push through it – that’s easily an hour or two every day that I could write rather than sleep.

I think that’s going to be my goal. Limit the sleeping (anyone have any tips on how to stay awake?) and use that extra time to write.

Step two will be to figure out how to split my time writing between the things I want to write/do. There’s the editing/proofreading and formatting that needs to be done on the finished manuscript(s), as well as the writing I would like to do on new projects. I don’t think it’s good to do only editing and proofreading, one also needs to do some writing and get the juices flowing. And after all this time, I definitely need to practice writing again!